I had Buster Olney’s A-Rod article open on my browser for the last few days, planning on pounding out an article on it this afternoon. Alas, the best laid plans often fall by the wayside, as Ben over at RAB essentially wrote the article I was planning to put forth. Here is only a small portion of Olney’s larger point:
The Yankees will keep playing him and ignore the question that hovers over Rodriguez and every other aging player who has been linked to the use of performance-enhancing drugs. They have to hope that what they’re seeing is someone simply struggling to recover from hip surgery, someone who is prone to doubts, anyway. They have to hope that he will start to hit eventually. They have to hope that he isn’t overcome by frustration with his performance and simply decides to pack it in and have the more extensive hip surgery that he already knows he needs.
The Yankees might be asking themselves the same question that rival talent evaluators are asking, about whether A-Rod without steroids is, in his mid-30s, destined to be a shell of what he was in his mid-20s, when he says he was young and stupid and juicing. But there really isn’t much point in the Yankees’ dwelling on any of that, because they cannot change the terms of his contract, they cannot ever know how much of A-Rod’s success was built on his talent and how much was predicated on his PED use.
And here is the portion of Ben’s take that echoes my thinking on the matter:
In reality, A-Rod’s slump was just that. He had a bad stretch brought about by fatigue in his hip. Yet, despite that reality, despite the surgery, we’re going to get eight years of badly written columns about A-Rod’s decline, A-Rod’s being a shell of his former self, A-Rod’s no longer steroid-filled physique. Forget the natural decline brought about by age. Forget talent. That’s the baseball world in which we live. Olney, though, should know better.
Every time Alex has a poor stretch, we are going to have a deluge of similar columns, questioning the cause of his struggles and inevitably linking them to steroids. Are you ready for eight years of questions?
Related posts:
I dont feel sorry for any of the players that have been confirmed to steroids or other illegal substances. If writers want to speculate decline is due to the lack of steroids instead of the natural aging process thats fine with me. That player has lost all right to get the benefit of the doubt. Is that thinking going to be right? Id say the majority of the time no it wont. It will actually be just a slump or the natural process of aging. But the second they took illegal drugs in my opinion they loose whatever right they had to get the benefit of the doubt. Again this is just my opinion but I have no sympathy for them whatsoever.
(Quote)
[Reply To This Comment]
Moshe Mandel Reply:
June 26th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I’m not requiring sympathy, I’m asking for good journalism. There is no reason to assume Alex just went off steroids. Either he went off in 2003, or he is still on some undetectable stuff. Why not treat a slump like a slump? They had no such questions when he started off with three hot weeks. Did he go off steroids 3 weeks ago?
(Quote)
[Reply To This Comment]
Does that apply to everyone who has taken them? If so, how do you know who has and who hasn’t? Arod’s name was one of 103. Until we know who the other 102 are, how can we hold him to one standard and everyone else to another.
Why are there 24/7 negative articles about Arod and only a smattering about Manny? Arod always runs everything out, works hard on his defense, and tries to be the best baseball player he can. Manny has quit on teams, and hustles only once in a while. Yet ESPN is covering him like he’s the second coming at the same time they’re writing articles like this about Arod.
(Quote)
[Reply To This Comment]
It goes for all of them. And I agree that its not fair that some cheaters will get off completely and never have it known that they were users. But at the same time these people did get caught so just because everyone cant get in trouble who used doesnt mean that the ones who were confirmed as users shouldnt get off too. Manny has been able to do whatever he wants whenever he wants because of the whole love affair with the Red Sox from ESPN. If he never was a red sox than Gammons and company would have been all over him. Some where along the line it became “cool” to like Manny. Arod is always going to get the worst because of his comments salary and the fact that he plays for the “corporate yankees”. Not to mention people looked at him as the clean hope to counter all the bad Mcgwire, Sosa and Bonds did. People feel more betrayed by him than anyone else.
(Quote)
[Reply To This Comment]
Lol, that question is the best defense of Arod I have ever seen written. You ask whether we the fans can handle the idea of eight years of questions, and then we casually dismiss the stresses Arod endures hourly as him being a simple headcase who wilts under pressure. I wish people would juxtapose Chase Utley and Mike Lowell’s responses regarding their hips against the instant expectations placed on Arod. The bottom line is I don’t think you can really draw any conclusions from this season, he is probably against better and more productive judgement pushing himself for a bunch of fans who frankly based on the ridiculous message boarding I’ve seen of late don’t deserve it. We may be more intelligent collectively as a result of our knowledge of idiosyncratic metrics, but thats empowered us to the point where we feel we are all knowing individually, where erroneous though often cited patently small sampled results cause us to shout to trade or bench, or DFA our best players. We are no longer fans, we are critics, who occasionally enjoy when our cynicism is proven wrong, but more often than not enjoy it more when our statistical analysis is proven right. It seems the only reasonable people around our those responsible for these wonderful blogs and for that I thank you.
(Quote)
[Reply To This Comment]
Moshe Mandel Reply:
June 26th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Thanks for the kind words, and I totally agree. People, especially Yankees fans, jumping on A-Rod now for poor performance when he pushed himself to be back this season are being quite unfair. A player has three bad weeks, and the shouts to DFA him explode. Swisher was everybody’s Darling, had three baserunning mistakes and 1 bad play in the field in a two week span, and suddenly he is a 4th outfielder or trade bait. The reactionary nature has a lot to do with the immediacy and anonymity that the internet affords.
(Quote)
[Reply To This Comment]
Why is it people think A-Rod is still on Rods. In Texas (on Rods) he had a few of his worse years. Before and after he was much better as a player.
If he is better before and after; wouldn’t one think he is not taking now. He is older every year, like Mo he will lose a little as the years go by. Like Mo, it won’t be because of Rods…just old age.
Those of you that can’t seem to forgive A-Rod for being young and dumb, must have had a very boring life…not to have ever made a mistake in judgement, it must be nice to be so perfect. And don’t say this is different because of who he is and trust an all that stuff. If you put him (or anyone) on a pedestal, that is your problem not A-Rods.
(Quote)
[Reply To This Comment]